A Devil Reborn
by thomaswriter
Summary: Time may heal all wounds, but time can't heal the demons in one man. Sequel to Trouble in Paradise. Part 3 of the Tom Falk series.
1. Intro

_**Author note: **__The following story is a followup to Trouble in Paradise, which was a followup to Project Nadia. It is strongly recommended you read those stories first, as this story will feature a character that I have created. I own nothing except the characters that I have created and only do this story for entertainment purposes._

_**Author note 2 (01/09/14): **In case you're wondering why this story is appearing as new again, it's because I deleted it a couple weeks ago from FanFiction. I feared that this would be a story I'd abandon since I had zero desire to write since I posted Chapter 2 in December. I guess all I needed was a break and for some storylines to mature like a fine wine, so I completed Chapter 3 tonight and now, this story returns for better or worse._

**_Author note 3:_**_ For those reading this series for the first time, the best way to describe Tom Falk is as something of a cross between The Shield's Vic Mackey and Wolverine of X-Men fame. Average height and built a bit stocky, but still fit with buzzed blonde hair and a widows peak._

* * *

**Intro**

* * *

_**? (Elysium, modern day)**_

Killing for him has become about as boring as eating his broccoli.

Tom Falk, former CIA Anti-Cartel, Dark Cover, and APO, the sometimes brazen husband of Nadia Falk, and father of two (one adopted), sits hunched over behind a shaking and trembling man with ear phones taped to his ear. The man is small in nature, with a head of half-bald hair. His skin is tan in color and what hair he does have is black and silver. He looks Latino in nature.

To the front of him is a crude looking handgun sitting on a table, with a lone light shining down on it in an otherwise dark room. It's crude because it lacks any handgripping, design, or really anything that makes it outside a gun outside of a barrel, trigger, and handle. The gray gun almost shines in the light, another oddity.

Tom rubs the top of his knuckles lightly, which are in the process of being healed up from recently coming into contact with something hard. The bruises and blood on the man's face in front of him provide all the evidence of what Tom's hands have been doing.

Tom sits straight up and asks "Are you ready to tell me where you got that thing sitting in front of you?"

The man quickly shakes his head. "I found it, I swear!"

Tom shoots up to his feet. "You don't find guns like that in Elysium, stupid!" Tom grabs the man's hair and slams his head into the table in front of him. The man screams, but the headphones still stay attached to his head.

The man sits up straight. His nose is now busted open. "Get these headphones off my head!"

Tom shakes his head as he takes a seat on the edge of the table to the left of the man. "No can do. See, those headphones emit a high pitched sound that makes it impossible for you to focus on teleporting away from little ol' me. That way, I don't have to keep a hand on your shoulder…or on your throat."

Despite that last part, Tom lunges forward and grabs the man's throat, causing him to gag something fierce as Tom starts crushing his windpipe. "Now, I asked you a question."

Forcing a little wind through his windpipe and feeling his life start to fade, the man replies "I'll tell you…if…you let go of me…"

Tom sees the desperation in the man's eyes. Even though Tom can't kill him this way because of the way Elysium works, all the feelings of getting the life choked out of you still exist, and so does man's desire to stay alive. Once Tom has let him squirm a little, he decides to let the man's throat go.

The man coughs twice, then stares back at the gun. "And I'll tell you if you take these headphones off."

"GOD DAMMIT!" Tom storms behind the man and goes missing for a quick moment. The man tries to turn around, but his body is chained to that chair so tight, he can't shift his weight at all.

Finally Tom returns…with a hatchet in his hand.

With a mighty swing, he drives that hatchet down on the man's right wrist, which was lying on the table.

Now the man's hand is lying by itself as the man screams loudly in pain and clutches his now severed right wrist in howling and bloody pain. Blood starts shooting out of the man's veins, mostly landing on the table in front of him.

Tom grabs the man's hand and throws it at his face. "Give yourself a hand, buddy!"

The hand smacks off the man's face and falls on the ground. Because the owner of that hand isn't dead yet, it remains on the floor and doesn't disappear yet.

Tom gives the man a few seconds to stop screaming. Tom still has a sarcastic look on his face, but isn't the least bit tense.

After all, he's been doing this all too much in the last year. So much, that he's become numb to it.

Tom stands behind the man and says in his ear "I warned you not to piss me off. Now, that gun in front of you is pointed at you. Anytime the pain becomes too much, you have my blessing to kill yourself. Besides, I want to see if that thing actually works. It's one of the oddest guns I've ever seen...how do I know that's not just a mockup of some sort?"

The man, breathing heavily out of pain, replies "It works. I tested it."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. I test the guns we make!"

"WE? Who is 'we'?"

The man leans back, his arm still throbbing and dripping with blood. "He'll kill me if I told you."

"Death is kind of beyond the question at this point. You shot an innocent woman to death, and I'm here to collect that debt."

"It was an accident, the gun wasn't loaded!"

"Say that were true. But you just admitted to me that you're making illegal guns that have taken at least one innocent life. Now, you're not really a mean prick, I can tell. You probably just saw a chance to make some extra bucks with this gun racket. But your name came up on our list of offenders…"

"Who are you? I'll tell you about me and my group, but I want to know who you are first."

Tom smirks. "Fair enough. My name is Tom Falk. Some of your homies may know me as The Falcon Devil."

"Halcon Diablo…"

"Ah, so you do know me!"

"I've heard your name mentioned. There's a rumor that you're here. Yes, some of my group does fear you."

"Well guess what? My job is to give evildoers their eviction notice from Elysium. You could even say I have a license to kill."

"Who do you work for?"

"The Elysian Intelligence Agency. I'm something of a hitman for them. There's reasons for that, not the least of which is my sullied history. Now that we've met, who do you work for?"

"I don't know him…I've never seen him, just his crew."

"Right, right, most employees never see their CEO, either. Does this jerkoff have a name?"

"He just goes by Ocho Loco."

Tom rolls his eyes. "Crazy Eight? That's so generic, I'm wondering if you made that up."

The man shakes his head quickly. "NO! I swear that's what he goes as!"

Tom sits back on the edge of the table and looks away. He starts thinking of his past in the anti-Cartel. He recalls one "Crazy Eight" during his time there. But he was also a rapist, and there's no chance he would have made it into Elysium.

Tom turns back to the man. "Is your crew based out of here?"

"Yes, we're based in Tijuana. They had me make those out of an old warehouse southeast of here."

Tom smirks. "Looks like I'm going to get to play in my old backyard again. You got an address?"

"Beats me. They pick me up in town, blindfold me, and take me there. I only know it was southeast because I peeked one time and saw we were going southeast out of town!"

"Where did they pick you up at?"

"Near the university on Las Lomas, the bus station near the industrial park. I swear this is all I know!"

Tom nods and stands up. He turns toward the gun and picks it up. "Guess I should see if this works now."

The man pleads "Please! I told you everything I know, doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"You killed an innocent woman with one of these things, and that means you're going to die. But, your cooperation means that I get to send you to Hell in the quickest and most painless way possible."

"Painless? Those things blow up one out of five times!"

"Blow up?"

"Yes! They're sometimes produced with a fault in them that makes them unstable! They literally explode in a person's hand! 1 out of 5!"

Tom dismissively shrugs. "The odds are irrelevant to me."

Tom then points the gun at the man and shoots him in the forehead. He doesn't even break the neutral expression on his face as blood splatters into the darkness behind the man.

He instead looks back at the gun and marvels how well it worked. It's a bit loud, but it had plenty of kick and it didn't blow up in his hand like the man cautioned it might. Maybe the man was lying, but with the punch the thing had, he didn't doubt that a slip-up during manufacturing could make this thing very painful to hold indeed.

Tom pockets the gun and takes the headphones that have fallen to the ground. The man and his hand have now disappeared, en route to Purgatory.

Tom chuckles a bit and speaks to no one in particular "About time one of my kills had a purpose. I think my wife will be happy to know that I've uncovered a gun running trade in Tijuana. Now, she's just got to let me play again."

**END OF CHAPTER**


	2. Cancer

**CANCER**

* * *

_**San Felipe, Mexico (Elysium)**_

The fact that he just shot a man's brains out with the oddest damn gun he's ever seen washes away when he reappears in front of his home.

Tom Falk, Elysium's immortal hitman, becomes Tom Falk, husband and father, in an instant.

He's done what he's did to the shaking man enough times to the point where any sort of feeling or pang of conscience can be tucked away rather easily. Tom knows it's not healthy to think this way, but duty is duty. His job in the Elysium Intelligence Agency, as was presented to him two years ago in the Vatican City, was to remove "dangerous, illegal or otherwise unwanted individuals" from Elysium.

It's a thankless job and one that most people wouldn't take. But Tom knows he's the only one of his kind that is truly immortal, and when he's sent out to "remove" someone from Elysium, he's sent out knowing there's no risk to him, nor anyone else in the EIA.

Every time he's sent out, he's guaranteed to come home and see his family again. He's guaranteed to experience the moments he's about to experience.

Like the patriarch of a classic TV family, he walks in through the front door like he just got done with a hard day's work with a big grin and a happy look on his face. He stops short of yelling his presence.

Emilio and Maria, now both 8 and 7 respectively, are playing a game in the living room with Julieta Romero, the foster mother living next door to them, and her two foster girls. The kids pay him no mind, completely engrossed in their game.

Tom gives them a bit of a sarcastic look and walks over to the back of the couch and looks in on Emilio and Maria. "Aren't you two going to say hello to your dad?"

Emilio and Maria both turn away from their tablets, which apparently are linked with the other tablets in some sort of game. They both grin almost comically and say in unison "Hi, daddy!" The kids then go back to their games, forgetting he was there.

"Don't get crazy, we were like that at their age, too."

Tom gets a slap on the back to go with it, causing him to turn suddenly at his brother Eddie with a bit of a jump. "Jesus, you're getting sneakier!"

Eddie smirks. "All that training with Laurent and Alec is starting to do some wonders."

Tom shakes his head. "They're training our forensics guy to be stealth…I still don't get it."

"You don't think I like to get crazy every now and then, too?"

Tom hangs his head and his cheer disappears. "Trust me, what I do isn't all that it's cracked up to be."

"Never said it was."

Tom nods and then gives Eddie a poundhug. "It's good to see you."

Eddie pats Tom on the back a couple times. "Another rough one?"

"No, but it's different from the others."

Tom hears footsteps coming from the hallway. Tom looks over in time to see Nadia pop up from the hallway. Tom never doesn't manage a smile when he sees her again. Is it habit? Maybe. But Tom has never lost sight of what Nadia means to him. Wife. Mother of his child. Boss. The Connection. His savior. His salvation.

And she's there to greet him with a smile. Her face looks brighter, partly because her hair is a bit shorter than it has been. Ever since coming out of her coma until after she became a supervisor in the Elysium Intelligence Agency, she kept her hair fairly long. Now, instead of having it go down halfway her back, it stops just past the shoulders. She's back to having the same look as she had in APO. The reasons she cut her hair is to keep it more streamlined for her work and because she got tired of messing with her hair. When Nadia has it in a ponytail like she has it now, it really opens her face back up, which Tom's grandmother Violet often compares to a China doll.

Nadia walks up to Tom and, whether he wanted it or not, leans up to give him a peck on the lips. When she's done, she kindly says "Welcome home, handsome."

Tom smirks back at Nadia and says "Thanks...boss."

Nadia lets out a bit of a sigh at the "boss" comment. She really doesn't feel like a boss, nor does she think the title particularly suits her. Still, she knows she's in her role to keep her out of the field as she still needs to be a mother first, a luxury that other mothers in Elysium often aren't afforded. Her right hand slides down to Tom's left hip and stops after feeling something. "What's this?"

Tom's face turns into stone. "Something we need to talk about privately." Tom turns over to Eddie. "This concerns you, too."

Eddie nods as they take off for Tom and Nadia's bedroom.

Nadia closes the door behind them as Tom reaches for his hip and pulls out the gun. Nadia gives it a funny look. Even from a distance it looks strange.

Tom hands it handle-first to Eddie. "Tell me that isn't the oddest damn gun you've ever seen."

Eddie squints as he examines the gun. "Well, there's no hand grip on the gun, like the damn thing was taken halfway through the assembly line." Eddie runs his finger over to where the hammer should be. "It's a semi-automatic with no real hammer mechanism I can see." Eddie starts to look all around the gun. "No real distinguishing features, I can't tell if it's a Smith and Wesson or Glock or what. I can't even compare it to anything, it's so odd."

Nadia walks over and asks "Let me take a look." Eddie hands Nadia the gun. Nadia's surprised as her hands sag a bit from the weight of the gun. "Wow, I didn't believe this was so heavy."

Tom says "You'd be surprised. It packs a heck of a wallop, just shy of my Desert Eagle, actually."

Nadia shakes her head in amazement as she examines the gun further. "It's all one solid piece. I mean, there's no screws anywhere, no lines that tell you this was in pieces...it's almost like this gun came off of some cast. I've never seen anything like it!"

Nadia then points the gun at nothing in particular, which causes Tom to jump out and grab the gun defensively. "Whoa! Don't shoot that thing!"

Nadia gives Tom a funny look. "I'm not about to shoot a handgun in my own home!"

"No, it's not that. The guy I got it from..."

"Sergio?"

"Yeah, he said those guns explode after a couple shots. I'm not sure what he's talking about, though. I've never heard a gun doing that unless it was over a hundred years old and pitted."

Eddie points out "With this thing being so solid, it probably doesn't have much give. Considering that and the fact that this thing generates so much force, it could make the barrel crack on the inside rather easily. When there's a crack in a barrel, look out."

Nadia knocks on the gun. "Are you sure? This metal seems pretty durable."

"No moving parts that we know of and it packs a wallop. And yeah, it's solid and heavy, but it's not like it's made of titanium or anything. In fact, the more I look at it, I don't think metal on it is anything special at all. In fact, it's probably cheap shit."

"Typical Mexican cutting corners." After letting out a laugh, Tom asks "With it all being one piece, is it possible you can still take it apart and look at the insides? It's been shot twice that I know of, assuming Sergio was being honest before I capped him."

Eddie nods. "Sure, I should be able to run a laser cutter on it to halve it. Do you really need it tonight?"

Tom gives Eddie a blank look. "You and Julieta have plans?"

"Well, not really, but with the kids staying here, we were kind of looking forward to a quiet night just to the two of us."

Nadia smiles as she looks back at Tom. "Remember when we were engaged?" When Tom gives her a blank stare, she corrects herself. "I mean, after I came out of my coma."

Tom nods. "Yeah, I knew what you meant."

Nadia then gives Tom an apologetic look before turning back to Eddie with a sheepish smile. "Go ahead and run your test tomorrow. No rush."

Eddie nods. "Thanks. I'm going to check on the rascals."

Tom slaps Eddie on the shoulder. "Thanks for your help. Have a good night."

Eddie nods and says "Good night."

Nadia smiles and says "Good night, Eddie."

Eddie then steps out of the room after tucking the gun in the back of his jeans.

Nadia walks over to the edge of the bed and sits. "So, how did it go?"

Tom sighs. "Sergio Esparza is dead."

"How did you get the information on the gun from him?"

Tom pauses. "Do you really want to know?"

Nadia closes her eyes and lets out a loud, dejected sigh. "You interrogated him."

"I gave him a hand in the end."

Nadia opens her eyes suddenly and stares at Tom with a look of shock. "You did what?"

"I gave him a handout."

Nadia looks at him blankly.

"I really have to hand it to him, he really held out for a while."

Now, Nadia sneers.

"I got tired of holding his hand."

"You cut off his hand?"

"So what? He's already got a new one in Purgatory!"

"Tom, that's not the point!"

"You're right, it isn't the point! The point is that there is a gun manufacturing racket in Tijuana that I have the drop on!"

"What do you mean?"

"Sergio coughed up that he helped make those guns. Didn't say how, but he said he made that one especially. Guy then found himself a _mamasita_ and the gun accidentally goes off when he's showing it to her. An accidental killing, but a killing nonetheless and he also admits to being involved in an illegal gun racket."

"It sounds like the grounds were right. I just don't like you being so rough..."

"Nadia, I'm tired of just killing people. Find the guy, take him away, and kill him. Simple, easy...boring, tasteless, and heartless."

"Tom, I know this is hard. This is why we talk about it every time it happens. But think of the people you're helping. You take all the risk out of one of us doing these hits."

"Yeah, I provide a valuable service. It's just...I want to branch out a little. These Mexican gun runners are perfect for me!"

Nadia starts shaking her head. "I don't think..."

Tom slams his hand on the dresser to the right of Nadia. "Dammit! I'm more than just some goddamn buttonman! You seem to forget that I spent a lifetime chasing cartels and gun runners...it's my freaking bread and butter! All I am asking is this one assignment."

Nadia lets out a loud sigh. She knows that Jack and Irina won't go for it.

Tom walks up to Nadia and pleads "Please, just talk to your parents. I will infiltrate these guys and eat them from the inside like a cancer!"

"You have a responsibility to be a father!"

"I know! I'll duck out and check in...with teleporting, it's real easy to do. Nadia, look at me. You know that I will destroy these guys and get those guns out of the street. We can't have guns going into the wrong hands!"

Nadia looks down at the floor and nods. "I know. Let me talk to my parents. I'll do my best, but I can't guarantee anything."

Tom leans over and lifts Nadia's head gently by the chin. He then gives Nadia a pretty hearty kiss. "I love you, beautiful."

Nadia cracks a small smile. "I love you, handsome."

Tom heads for the door, but stops when he realizes that Nadia's not coming. "I'm going to go check on the kids, you coming?"

"In a minute."

Tom nods and walks out the room.

Nadia just sits there alone for a bit, letting the silence overwhelm her. Nadia knows what Tom can do to this gun group.

And it scares her.

**END OF CHAPTER**


	3. Tiebreaker

**TIEBREAKER**

* * *

_**Los Angeles, California (Elysium)**_

* * *

Irina Derevko-Bristow hasn't been married long enough to not forget the old times.

Sure, she's looking as young as she did when she was married to Jack Bristow. Sure she's married to Jack Bristow now. And sure, she's picking out tomatoes from the garden just like she used to do.

Nowadays, Irina finds doing tasks like picking tomatoes from her garden to be much more enjoyable, actually. Every time Jack walks out to see how she's doing, she doesn't have to remember that she's Laura to him and not Irina.

She is Irina Derevko-Bristow. And she doesn't have to be anyone else to anyone else ever again.

Even though there were some bumpy patches along the way, especially pertaining to past events, Jack and Irina are a rather happy couple nowadays. In fact, to everyone's surprise, the two got married at the local courthouse about six months ago. No one had any idea they were looking to tie the knot at all, although Nadia was both shocked and relieved when she was asked to be the witness to the marriage.

Once the business with Arvin Sloane and the rest of The Nine was settled, Irina got started on what easily has been the best two years of her life, at least the best two since she was raising Sydney. Everything for her is normal now, and she's not finding work at the Elysium Intelligence Agency to be all that exhausting, given how life in Elysium works.

But one person that she fears the most is Milo Rambaldi.

Not just because he's the creator of the prophecy that warped her later years of life, but because of what he did to Arvin Sloane two years ago.

About a year ago, in a casual conversation with her distant ancestor and current Il Credo Divino hitman Alec Derevko, it was revealed what Rambaldi stopped time and manipulated Sloane's arm so that, when Rambaldi restarted time, Sloane killed himself.

That fact has caused everyone in Irina's life, including herself, to be a little standoff-ish of Rambaldi lately. Now, it's not that everyone suddenly thinks that Rambaldi is this evil man. It's actually quite the contrary. Everyone in Rambaldi's life believes him to be a warm and gentle soul. But the cold-bloodedness of Rambaldi's actions with Sloane is bothersome to those around him, like a hanging black cloud on an otherwise sunny person. It'd be expected out of Laurent, Alec, or even Tom, but Rambaldi? Absolutely not, and it makes some question his nature a bit.

But Irina's not thinking about that. All she's thinking about is how good her tomatoes have turned out as she plucks another one and tosses it in a basket with others that have turned out well.

"Nice looking tomatoes, Mom!"

Internally, Irina jumps. Externally, she doesn't even flinch when Nadia speaks up behind her. "After all this time, you expect me to jump when you suddenly speak up behind me."

Nadia defiantly folds her arms. "You can't tell me that you weren't the least bit surprised just now."

Irina smirks defiantly herself, not taking her attention off the tomatoes. "I don't have to admit anything."

"That's right. Because I KNOW you're surprised!"

Irina turns back to face Nadia suddenly. "And how do you know that?"

Nadia pauses, then looks at the ground a little sheepishly. "Because I know we're alike."

Irina lets out a couple chuckles. "Isn't that the truth." Irina turns back and resumes studying her tomatoes. "Is this a casual visit? It's been a little while since we had one of those."

Nadia looks down at the ground a little timidly. "I wish it was. But it's about Tom."

Irina lets out a quick chuckle. "What else. What'd he do now?"

"He's come across a lead in his last kill."

Irina stops what she's doing, but doesn't turn around. "He got Sergio Esparza, right?"

"Yes, but that's not all. He showed me a gun that he had on him."

"The murder weapon?"

"Yes. But...it's not a gun I've ever seen before."

Irina turns around quickly. "Where is it?"

"I gave it to Eddie to do forensics on it. He was mystified as well."

"What's the problem with it?"

"No branding, no hammer, no apparent moving parts...it's like one solid chunk of metal. But it fires and, according to Tom, is quite powerful."

Irina racks her brain, but comes up with nothing. She's never heard of a gun being one solid piece. It almost seems impossible. "That doesn't make any sense."

"I didn't think it did either, but I the gun is real. There's a flaw with them, though."

"They crack."

Nadia raises her eyebrows quickly. "How'd you guess?"

"You said the gun packs a lot of force. Solid object like that with no give can only take so much percussion before it becomes useless."

"Have you seen anything like that?"

Irina shrugs. "No, but I don't need to. I had copious amounts of free time on my hands at various points of my life. Physics was just one of the things I studied in my spare time."

Nadia lets out a sigh. "Well, I'm afraid that what I was afraid of happening to Tom is happening. He wants to infiltrate this gun ring and, as he so delicately put it, 'eat them from the inside like cancer'."

Irina pauses and looks away to think. After mulling it over for a couple seconds, she tells Nadia "This may be the best thing for him."

"WHAT?!"

Irina turns back to Nadia with a serious look on her face. "Tom's being wasted as a simple killer. I've seen him in action and he's capable of more than you think."

"I KNOW he's more capable than I think! And that's what scares me because when he's in the zone, he can be a total monster!"

"Being a monster is a tool for him. He never forgets his friends. I've seen his type before. Tom can be a rabid animal...but you're never disappointed with the ends to his means."

"So when he starts decapitating cartel members, that doesn't raise any flags with you?"

"He's doing what they do. Again, I know his type. Feeding an enemy's own medicine to them is good sport in his eyes."

Nadia pleads "It's too much of a risk. What if he loses his mind? We can't do anything about it if he does!"

Irina gives Nadia an appalled look. "Listen to yourself right now! Don't you love this man?"

Nadia is taken aback a bit. "I do, and I want to keep loving him!"

A man's voice is heard behind Nadia. "What's going on, Nadia?"

Nadia turns her head quickly and sees Jack walking towards them from the back of the house. "It's Tom. He's found a Mexican gun ring that he wants to infiltrate."

Jack shrugs. "Ok. How?"

Irina replies "His last assignment revealed a gun that was manufactured here."

Nadia continues. "He interrogated his target before killing him and revealed he was working in this ring."

Jack asks "Where is they based?"

"Tijuana. We don't have a lot of information yet, though."

"But we do have evidence."

"Right. Eddie Falk is having a gun tested."

"So what are your concerns, Nadia?"

"The way Tom sounded when trying to sell me on this mission. Dad, you know what Tom is capable of when he's given too long of a leash."

Jack pauses, then nods. "He can be reckless."

Irina retorts "I like to call it aggressive."

Jack looks over at Irina in his usual icy stare. It's not hateful like he used to look at Irina, but more determined. "Borderline ruthless."

Nadia, still uneasy about this, says "Right. Besides, we still have so many people that Tom needs to target. He's the only one we can send that is guaranteed to return because of his condition."

Irina replies "Nadia, this isn't the first time you've come to us concerned about Tom's psyche. Put yourself in his shoes. For the last two years, he's been nothing but a killing machine. There's not much sport in what he does. Go to the guy, take him somewhere isolated, and kill him. Tom needs an adventure. Letting him pursue this lead and infiltrate this group may be the therapy he needs."

Jack snaps "Or it could damage his psyche further." Jack then turns to Nadia. "Tell Tom that he needs to take some time off. We'll handle the investigation."

Irina grabs Nadia's shoulder gently. "Nadia, I don't concur. Let him do what he needs to do. One thing I know about Tom is he's efficient. We can't have these guns out on the streets, and perhaps at the same time, he can trim down that list. Surely there's the wrong kind of people that are involved in this."

Nadia closes her eyes and lets out a deep, deep sigh. One vote for sending Tom and one against. Even though Jack and Irina are her superiors, she sometimes has to act as a tiebreaker for them. This is no exception.

On one hand, Nadia sees what Irina's saying. This gun threat could be a bad since guns aren't allowed in Elysium except for hunting wild game. Tom knows how cartels work, and this may just be child's play to him.

But, there's the elephant in the room to deal with. And that elephant in the room is Tom's lack of morality in the heat of the moment as well as Tom's recent frustration and shaky control of his anger.

Nadia knows a bulldog like Tom isn't someone you should keep couped up. But if that bulldog starts foaming at the mouth and you give it too much leash...

Nadia opens her eyes. She's not totally convinced, but still says "Dad's right. I'm giving him a break."

Jack pats Nadia on the back. "Good move. Did you get his complete debrief from the Esparza mission?"

"Yes."

"Come on. You can fill me in over coffee and cookies. Irina baked last night."

Nadia looks over at a mentally-distracted Irina with a smile. "What'd you make this time?"

Irina snaps out of her trance and says "Butterhorns. I gave Mary Falk's recipe a shot."

Nadia smiles, not noticing that Irina seems a little preoccupied mentally. "I'm sure they're great." Jack and Nadia then go into the home, both of them chatting away about something that Irina's not listening to.

No, Irina is thinking about being overruled on Tom Falk. She knows Tom. She's good at reading people and she feels she's got Tom read like a book.

She feels that there's a different course of action to be done here.

Irina reaches into her jeans pocket and pulls out a cell phone. She scrolls down through some numbers and, finding the one she wants, makes the call.

After a few rings, the other end picks up. _"Hola?"_

Irina turns away from the house. "Yes, is this Rey Garza?"

In English, the man replies _"Yes. Who is this?"_

"Irina Derevko. I've got a job for you."

**END OF CHAPTER**


	4. Enabler

**ENABLER**

* * *

_**San Felipe, Mexico (Elysium)**_

She already knows how this will end.

Nadia Falk stands outside the front door to her home. The sun is setting, creating a nice sunset behind her if she were interested in that.

No. She's not interested in sunsets right now. She's just interested in getting through telling her husband Tom that he's not going to infiltrate the Mexican gun ring.

She looks down at the manilla folder in her hands. A peace offering of sorts. But one that she feels will fall woefully short.

It's a hopeless situation that she's been put in. When the EIA started, Tom was a loyal soldier, ever obedient to Nadia like he always is. The big reason for the EIA's power structure is to place Nadia directly over Tom's head. Before Nadia, Tom had a reputation for bucking authority and marching to the beat of his own drum. What made things worse with him is that he had a charisma about him that drew in those close to him even closer in rebellious moments. But when it comes to Nadia, Tom becomes a loyal puppy. Maybe it's The Connection or maybe it's Tom's sense of chivalry. Whatever the reason, Nadia almost always kept Tom's head screwed on right.

But this is not the same Tom. Two years of killing people has changed Tom. Nadia's noticed it just in his basic day to day mood.

Nadia takes a deep breath. Here goes nothing...

* * *

"Daddy, what's wrong?"

Tom hates that question. It means that Maria is spending her time being concerned about him and not doing the cute things kids her age do. But it's a question he has to hear from a time to time from his cute-as-a-button daughter, and it's one he has to hear now as he stares out the patio windows that face the sea.

But his sour puss actually comes close to matching the one Nadia had before she left to consult with her parents about the Tijuana gun ring.

Tom wants this gun ring assignment. He wants it bad. Just about every day for the past two years has been like a game of "Go Fetch" for him. Get the assignment, go consult with the local witness on the assignment's latest whereabouts, find assignment, kill assignment. Wash, rinse, repeat.

But this gun ring excites Tom. Flushing out gun rings is right up his alley, with his decade of experience in the Anti-Cartel. And this certainly isn't the usual game of Go Fetch.

"Daddy!"

Tom looks over suddenly after Maria tugs at his sleeves. "Wh-what?"

"What's wrong? You look like you're mad!"

Tom cracks a small smile. "I'm not mad!"

Maria sees right through it. "Yeah you are. Did Emilio wet the bed again?"

Tom cringes. "No! He hasn't done that for a few months now. Besides, I wouldn't be upset over that, that's silly."

"Then what is it? Is it Mommy?"

Tom lets out a sigh and looks back at the sea. "Just a difference of opinion is all." Tom looks back down at Maria, who's staring up at him innocently. "Are you hungry?"

Maria shrugs a little. "Not really."

Tom looks down the hallway. "What about your brother?"

"I dunno."

Tom looks down at Maria again. "He hasn't said anything?"

"I dunno. He doesn't really talk to me when he's playing Mario."

Tom lets out a frustrated sigh. "I'm going to start setting limits on how long he plays. He's getting obsessed with his game."

The front door opens, which Tom and Maria both look at at the same time.

Nadia steps in with a big smile on her face. "Hey! What's up?" Her voice cracks a bit in the end when she makes eye contact with Tom. She keeps the smile, though, but...

...Tom notices how forced it is. Tom doesn't smile back. Tom knows what's coming.

Maria steps towards Nadia. "Mommy, I'm hungry. When's dinner?"

Tom looks down astonished at Maria, forgetting about Nadia for a moment. "You just told me you weren't hungry!"

Maria turns back around. "I wasn't hungry at the time!"

"It was two minutes ago!"

Maria gives Tom a shit-eating grin and starts laughing. 7 years old and she already knows how to push Tom's buttons.

Nadia walks up at gives Maria a hug and a kiss on the top of her forehead. "I'll get started on dinner after I talk to your daddy outside, ok?"

Maria grins back at Nadia. "Ok!" She then takes off down the hallway to give Emilio the news.

That just leaves Tom and Nadia. Nadia's still trying to paint a smile on her face, but Tom can see right through it. He knows Nadia's got nothing but bad news for him.

Nadia fake-clears her throat and says "Tom, I..."

Tom holds up his hand. "In the interest of not letting the kids hear my imminent meltdown, let's do this out on the patio."

Nadia's fake-smile disappears. She forms a very, very serious look on her face. "Maybe we shouldn't talk at all if you're getting ready to throw a tantrum."

This causes Tom to let out a couple sarcastic laughs. "You know what? I'll make you a deal. I won't melt down in front of you. Cross my heart, hope to die." Tom crosses his hart and presses his hands together in prayer as he says those last couple works. But all the while, he's got that smartass/defiant look on his face that he gets when he's trying to cover up anger with humor.

Nadia's shoulders sag as she closes her eyes. "You think I enjoy doing what I'm about to do?"

Tom turns around, grabs the patio door, and slides it open. He stands there and, almost as if commanding her, says "Come on. Let's get this over with."

But Nadia doesn't walk by Tom. Instead, she teleports outside on the other side of the table, much to Tom's astonishment.

Tom quickly walks outside and closes the patio door rather firmly. "What the hell was that? Are you afraid of me all of the sudden?"

Nadia opens her eyes and they're glassy. "I don't think I can handle your snide remarks anymore! This job is so hard for me! I know you absolutely hate what you're doing right now, but you're the only one that is immortal! Every time I send someone else on an assignment, I have to worry about whether they'll return."

Tom gives her a disconcerting look. "Oh come on! We'll barter for their lives back from Mammon!"

"But at WHAT cost? They have to feel the pain of death!"

"EXCUSE ME! I've been shot and stabbed five times in just the last year, it still hurts me just the same!"

"But we don't have to give favors to Mammon when that happens, do we? And what if someone dies and Mammon just decides he's not going to trade with us anymore? Have you forgotten how things broke down between Rambaldi and Mammon a year ago? Things are just now getting back to normal with those two!"

"I know who I am, Nadia, and I know what role I have. But some of these guys you send me after are total freaking bullshit! You're having me treat the disease, but this gun ring is a symptom! If I infiltrate these gun runners and wipe them out from the start, how many people don't have to suffer from future gun-related deaths? And how many less missions do you have to send the likes of me out on?"

"We know these guys are a problem and we are going to take care of it."

"Then why won't you send me on this mission?"

Nadia freezes.

"WHY?"

"BECAUSE I DON'T WANT YOU TO BECOME A MONSTER!"

Tom's face becomes frozen in shock. He doesn't say anything or even move a centimeter. I guess it wasn't Tom that was going to have a meltdown.

Nadia starts wiping tears away. "Tom, I love you. You're my husband! You're the father to my child, and to our adopted child! And dammit, you're a terrific father and a good man! But there is a line that you cross that scares me half to death! You've said before you only cross the line only when you feel it's needed...but I watched Arvin Sloane eventually become consumed by the thing that controlled him..."

"DON'T COMPARE..."

"I'M NOT! You're a much, much better human being than Sloane was on his best day! But me and my father have seen what madness looks like. And if we send you out on this mission, and you start decapitating and mutilating the people you just need to eliminate, when does it stop?"

Tom growls "It stops when THEY are stopped. Do you have any concept on how a cartel works?"

"This isn't a cartel!"

"No, but even gun and drug rings try to act like cartels because they aspire to be one! So they will copy what a cartel does. And do you know what a cartel does?"

Nadia lets out a sigh. "They're monsters. I know."

"Do you? Do you know why they do what they do?"

Nadia reluctantly replies "To instil fear in others."

"Exactly."

"Well congratulations, Tom. I'm afraid."

Now it's Tom's turn to sag his shoulders in remorse. "Nadia, I swear on my life that you never have to be afraid of me. I have been devoted to you every second since we hugged on my first day at APO. And I've been devoted to our kids. Nadia, I swear I will never cross the line when I come home from a mission. If I do, then I'll probably walk across the portal to hell out of shame and you'll never see me again. I hoped you'd have more faith in me than that."

Nadia's face relaxes and, in a much calmer tone, says "Maybe you should take some time off. I talked with my parents and that's what we came up with. I have an assignment here. Look it over and let me know if you can handle it tomorrow. If you can't...I won't be upset." Nadia sets the manila folder she's been holding this whole time on the table that separates her from Tom. "Take your time. Please stay out here and cool off for a while, though, before you come inside." Nadia says nothing else and walks inside the house. Tom watches Nadia start getting things ready for dinner.

Tom takes a deep, pained breath. Tom hasn't seen that Nadia's fear of him has been growing, too, and he's been blind to it this whole time. He can't believe it. For all his ability to read Nadia, he's been so...full of himself lately to not read between the lines with his own wife, the woman he's so devoted to.

Is Nadia right? Is something happening with him that he can't control?

Tom slowly saunters over to the file folder Nadia left. He looks at the name on the tab: "Philippe Lapierre – Montreal, Quebec, Canada". Another journey into 'Canuckistan'...that's what he likes to call Canada anyway. He thought it was funny when he saw political pundit Pat Buchanan say it on TV over 10 years ago and it stuck with him.

But Tom's not really interested in having a laugh right now, nor is he really interested in reading that file. Instead, he's going to take Nadia's advice and try to clear his head.

So Tom starts walking along the coastline. He looks to the west at the slowly diminishing sunlight, all the while letting the sea's waves crash upon his legs.

What the hell is he doing anymore? That's what he keeps asking himself.

His thoughts are broken when he trips over a shell that he couldn't see. He lets out a frustrated growl when he regains his balance and looks down at the conch shell. He angrily bends over, picks up the shell, and chucks it into the sea, yelling "YOU EFFING ASSHOLE!" the whole way.

A shell made him snap like that. A lonely shell. Maybe he is beginning to crack.

"I take it Nadia told you."

Tom spins behind him to look at the source of that voice, the unmistakable voice of Irina Derevko. "The hell are you doing here?"

Irina, in her casual best, stands about 10 feet away from Tom. "I anticipated you needing to blow off some steam by taking a walk."

"How did you know I was going for a walk?"

Irina smirks. "Because after fights with Nadia, this is what you do. I guess Nadia's intel was correct."

This causes Tom to give Irina a sardonic smirk. "Your ability to keep tabs on people knows no bounds. You've probably got me read right down to the brand of toilet paper I use."

"If you must know, I know you use Quilted Northern...but I also know that Nadia does your shopping because that's something she doesn't trust you to do. So that's in my Nadia mental folder."

Tom rolls his eyes, but can't help but laugh a little. Irina's coolness never ceases to astonish him. "So you came here to stalk me on my nightly blow-off-steam walk?"

"Oh no. I didn't have to stalk you at all. I knew to be here because you always walk north."

"Alright! And yeah, I'm upset that apparently you, Jack, and Nadia have worked together to put the kabosh on my hopes once again."

Irina shakes her head slowly. "You got one detail wrong."

"Yeah?"

"I was outvoted today."

Tom raises a curious eyebrow. "Is that so? Well, if you ever want to pull a coup and become EIA Dictator, I wouldn't be entirely opposed to that after today."

Irina lets out a couple chuckles. She doesn't THINK Tom was being serious just now... "I'll have to remember that. But, I don't need your help with any coups today."

Tom rolls his eyes again. "You want me to take out that Frenchie that Nadia wants me to clip."

Irina shakes her head quickly. "No way. I want you to infiltrate that gun ring."

**END OF CHAPTER**


	5. Strawberry Fields Forever

**STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER**

* * *

_**San Felipe, Mexico (Elysium)**_

Irina's voice turns resolute. "That's right, Tom. You're going to infiltrate the gun ring and end them."

Tom gives Irina the biggest incredulous look that he can form on his face. "You've gotta be shitting me. Didn't you just get done telling me you were outvoted?"

Irina smirks. "Yeah, I was outvoted. But they forgot one thing."

"And what's that?"

"They forgot they're dealing with me."

Tom's incredulous look doesn't leave his face. "What the hell is this? _Is_ this power grab of some sort?"

Irina shakes her head. "Not exactly. I have my reasons, but above all else, I believe they are making a fatal mistake underestimating this gun ring. I just received intel on them."

Tom raises a curious eyebrow. "From where?"

Irina reaches in her pocket and pulls out what appears to be an iPhone. "The EIA division in Tijuana is still in its infancy, but I talked with my contact there. You remember Rey Garza, right?"

Tom lets out a couple chuckles. "Yeah, I know Rey pretty well. Former Tijuana Police Chief...the one that wasn't bought and paid for by the cartels. Got clipped for not being a cartel puppet, too."

"He's been a great find, Tom, and I appreciate you recommending him. He tells me that his division has been well aware of the gun ring for some time. As a matter of fact, they have someone inside already."

"Why are we just now learning that they have an operation going already?"

"Like I said, the Tijuana division of the EIA is still a little disorganized. Rey may be doing a good job in some areas, but he plays things a little too close to the vest."

"No shit. Guy's legit, but sometimes it was like pulling teeth to get information out. He was so worried in life about the wrong ears picking up what he was saying. Guess he still has the habit of being coy."

"Anyway, when I informed him of your discovery and willingness to infiltrate, he was all for it. These are serious players and they've been talking about taking their operation beyond Mexico. We need to neutralize this threat before more guns end up in the wrong hands."

Tom nods, understanding where Irina is coming from. "Did you tell Jack about this?"

Now it's Irina's turn to chuckle. "No, because his response would be too predictable."

Tom turns away with an incredulous smirk on his face. Irina's up to something, but she's also dangling a tasty carrot in front of him. "Who is the inside man?"

Irina shakes her head. "Rey didn't say. He has no way of making contact with him anyway, he's in too deep. You'll have to be careful with who you kill." Irina then hands Tom the iPhone.

Tom, a little perplexed, asks "What's this?"

Irina replies "It's an iPhone. I've blocked you from downloading any additional apps or making calls on it. But that's not important. On the phone is a list of people that are wanted for either committing a crime or sneaking into Elysium illegally. In addition to rooting out the gun ring, you're also tasked with sending people on this list to Hell."

Tom scrolls around on the phone and looks at the list. He notices that each name has a green dot next to it, but he's not sure what that means. There are also boxes next to the names that he can check and uncheck. "Everyone of these people are in the gun ring?"

"No, these are just suspects. Don't go just killing everyone...cross reference them with the list, check them when you confirm they're located, and get intel first. I don't want you making waves, at least right off the bat. When you do kill someone on the list, the red dot turns red, indicating they're in Purgatory. Here, you'll also need these." Irina hands Tom a pair of earbuds. "The audio file with the high pitched sound is also there, in case you need to interrogate."

Tom nods and asks "When do I deploy?"

"Immediately."

Tom shakes his head very quickly. "No, no, no, I have to at least spend one more night with the kids and Nadia..."

"Absolutely not. You go back home and start packing and Nadia's not even going to need a second to know what you're up to."

"You're really serious about going behind your daughter's back here. What is going on, Irina?"

Irina pauses for a moment. "I don't have any nefarious intentions here, if that's what you're asking. I have my reasons."

Tom sighs and starts to pace in a circle. "I don't think I can do this...not like this, anyway."

Irina, still coolly smiling after all this time, reaches into her back pocket and grabs a rolled up piece of paper. "Thomas Loren Falk, born February 21st, 1972 in Bunker, Missouri. Height: 5 foot 9, weight: 195 pounds. Blood type: B-negative."

Tom looks back at Irina with an astonished look and stops pacing. "What are you doing?"

Irina continues as if she didn't hear a thing. "Caution: Do not play the song 'Strawberry Fields Forever' in his presence.'"

Tom's eyes bug out of his head and he starts storming towards Irina. That song...even THINKING about it appears to set something off in his head. In a menacing tone, he asks "Do you know WHY you don't play that song around me?"

Irina smirks as she lowers the paper. "I didn't know until I talked to Jack about you one day. He told me that he was able to access some of your files from the Anti-Cartel. He told me all about your...unique training with the Anti-Cartel."

Tom stops in front of Irina in a foul mood. He snatches the paper from Irina's hand and examines it himself. He can't believe it. "This is from my CIA file. They actually said not to play the song around me..."

"That's because you know what happens when you do hear that song..."

* * *

_**Los Angeles, California (Earth, circa 1991)**_

A much younger Tom Falk enters a room marked "training". Tom carries a little more weight than he does now, but also does not have a widows peak in his blonde hair, either. His hair is also a bit longer instead of being nearly buzzed like it is nowadays.

He closes the door behind him and only sees a well-built Hispanic man sitting on the other side of a table. He's tall with finely combed black hair and a suit that definitely was not cheap. "Have a seat, Tom."

Tom does take a seat across the man, but looks confused. "Hey, I thought you called me in here this weekend for training. What is this?"

Eduardo Munoz. Tom's boss in the Anti-Cartel and later his lawyer when Tom was arrested after beating Julian Sark into a coma at APO. "This is your training, if you choose to go through with it."

Tom snaps back. "I want to be the best agent I can be, throw anything at me."

"You may be singing a different tune in a few moments."

Tom nonchalantly shrugs while wearing a cocky smirk on his face. Tom was 19 years old at the time and the chip on his shoulder was about the size of a boulder. He joined the Anti-Cartel because he wanted to find something bigger in life, and he thought maybe this was the ticket.

He had no idea that Elena Derevko injected him with The Connection, which actually made him desire to find Nadia. THAT was the thing he was searching for, and he'd be the first to tell you that after thinking about it years after the fact.

Eduardo slides a CD player with headphones over to him. "Do you have a song that almost...takes you to a different place in your mind?"

Tom thinks for a bit. "Metallica's 'Enter Sandman'?"

Eduardo laughs. "I don't think that will work. Something more mellow?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Alright, I'll tell you. It's of my belief as well as your supervisor Mitch Hayes that you don't quite have the killer instinct needed to take on the cartels."

Tom leans forward in a defensive posture. "Are you effing kidding me? Why did you bring me..."

Eduardo continues as if Tom's not even talking. "Now, that's not to say that killer instinct can't be drawn out of you. Not everyone has the potential you do. I see big things in your future, Tom, but in order to make that future a reality, you need to go to a different place when you're in the field. You need to forget about your girlfriend, you need to forget about your family, your friends, everyone. This training is experimental in nature, so you're not required to take part. But if you do, I think you can be a nightmare for cartels. They'll be scared to even see you walking in their town's streets. The song that you choose will act as a trigger for a series of mental checklists that you'll have to process in order to reach not just the right mindset you'll need in the field, but also reach a state where you're focused on nothing but the mission."

Tom's smirk returns and grows bigger than it was. He appears to have no reservations about this experimental training at all. "I kind of like this idea. It sounds like some really serious shit."

Eduardo slowly nods. "It's very serious, so I need to know if you're willing to go ahead with it."

Tom keeps the determined look on his face. "Bring it on."

Eduardo. "Good. First, we'll need a song. I like to recommend something almost hypnotic..."

Tom starts chuckling. "I remember when I was little sitting around and listening to Beatles albums with my grandfather. There was this one song that was beyond trippy...Strawberry Fields I think it was."

Eduardo holds up a finger. "Strawberry Fields FOREVER is what that song is...and I think that is an excellent choice. I'll go get it for you."

Eduardo then walks out of the room.

The day was Saturday. Tom wouldn't walk out of that room, nor its adjacent bathroom, until after dark Sunday evening. His training was that intensive.

He walked into the room a Tom Falk. He walked out of the room as Tom Falk. But in between...The Falcon Devil was born.

* * *

Tom closes his eyes as he dwells on that very weekend. "And you know what happens when I listen to that song..."

Irina replies "I know exactly what happens...because I know exactly what happened after Matt Aguero died. I know the man you can be, Tom, and you need to unplug yourself from any distractions you have in your life. I need you to unplug as well because time is of the essence here."

Tom's face forms a frown. "This is why Nadia doesn't want me to do this mission. I mean, she doesn't know about this, but she knows how I can be in the heat of the moment. Look, I found it hard to control who I am and who I become after listening to this song. That's why I stopped listening to the song after Matt Aguero's aftermath. You understand what could happen if I listen to this song?"

Irina lets out a deep breath. "It's the only way I see you fulfilling this mission. If I didn't think taking out this gun ring wasn't absolutely necessary, I wouldn't ask you to go this step. But I know you think of Nadia and your kids a lot, you think about what your brother, your mother, your father, and everyone else you care about will think. But you need to disconnect completely if you are to successfully go in deep here. But..."

Irina pauses, which causes Tom to break his thousand yard stare out to the sea and turn to Irina. "But what?"

Irina looks Tom square in the eyes, which are squinting a bit while she has a wide smirk on her face, like she's got a plan in mind. "I can't make you do anything. I can't stop you from doing anything, either. I just hope you understand what it is you have to do...and what it will take. If you don't want to go on this mission, you don't have to. But I know you want to go on this mission. You want to be free again. This is your chance. I only ask that you don't go into the mission distracted." Irina then steps forward and gets in Tom's face and speaks in a serious tone. "If you do accept this mission, don't hold anything back. You do what it is you need to do, and do it however you feel necessary." Irina then looks down at the phone. "The names of your targets are in that phone, along with some mission details. There's also a song on that phone...I don't need to give you three guesses to answer which one it is."

Irina then steps back and, wearing a confident smirking, teleports away, leaving Tom holding an iPhone with headphones and a conundrum on his hands.

Even though he's got other things on his mind, Tom knows deep down exactly what Irina just did. She appealed to his dark side, and yes, it's very hard to resist that dark side when it comes calling.

Tom goes back to looking out to the sea with a thousand yard stare. The sun has basically set at this point, but some pinkish light still shines across the water. Tom mulls his options, and mulls them carefully.

He turns to his right. In the distance, he can see his home. Nadia, Maria, and Emilio are inside, probably curious as to where he is right now. If he were to leave on this mission...it's going to drive Nadia crazy. He has no idea when or if Irina will tell her the truth, but if Tom had to guess, Irina's going to go ahead as if she has no knowledge of what's going on.

After all, Tom is immortal. No one can stop him. If Tom were Irina, he'd feign ignorance and use his immortality as the most logical reason, too.

But there is a way he can be stopped. His guilty conscience can be very powerful at times, and he can even feel it right now telling him to do the right thing and go back to his family.

But what is the right thing? Towing the line and staying with his family or saving innocent lives by eliminating a gun ring before it blows up into something bigger?

And then there's Tom himself. He goes back to Nadia and he's back at her beckon call again. He hates the role that he has in the EIA and the thought of playing another game of 'go fetch' just doesn't sit well with him. He's got to do this. He's got to set out on his own and tackle this project by himself. If nothing else, he needs to do this to break the monotony in his life.

Maybe Irina realizes that. Or perhaps maybe Irina has another motive for wanting to make a devil reborn...

Tom looks down at the phone. He knows when he starts playing back the song, that the mental checklists in his mind start to process that turn him into the killer that Eduardo Munoz wanted to unleash over two decades ago. And when he's done...he'll no longer be Tom Falk. He'll be Halcon Diablo, the bane of cartels and the embodiment of cruelty.

Tom slips on the earbuds. He pauses, making sure he still wants to go through this. Then, he opens up his music player and hits play.

He closes his eyes as the almost-hypnotic opening riff of the song plays, followed by...

_LET ME TAKE YOU DOWN 'CAUSE I'M GOING TO...STRAWBERRY FIELDS...NOTHING IS REAL..._

And slowly, a snarl starts to form on Tom's face as the song continues.

**END OF CHAPTER**


	6. Here and Gone

**HERE AND GONE**

* * *

_**San Felipe, Mexico (Elysium)**_

6 AM and the alarm goes off like it always does. Nadia Falk cracks her eyes open for the first time today.

She's facing the closet and away from the window, but the faint orange light reflecting off the closet door tells her that the sun is rising and it's going to be sunny today. That tells her that today is looking like a normal day, as it's usually sunny out and she's up when she should be.

Nadia reaches over and turns the alarm off, then on again to it's set for the next day. As she does, she sleepily asks Tom "Hey, what sound's good for breakfast?"

No answer.

Nadia quickly flips over to the other side and sees that her husband isn't there. In fact, his side of the bed doesn't even look disturbed.

Suddenly, what seemed like a normal morning has turned into an oddity. There's nothing normal about Tom's side of the bed being vacant. Nadia thought that Tom may have teleported over to Ireland to have some drinks with the True Irish. That's his typical move when he's being moody because the leader of the True Irish, Owen Schroeder, has ratted out Tom's whereabouts on more than one occasion. Sometimes, Tom chooses the company of his Storm Crew friends, but they're less likely to rat.

But what makes this troubling for Nadia is that Tom always returns in the middle of the night. Despite being a blunt force object sometimes, Tom is fairly good at keeping stealthy so he doesn't wake Nadia, who usually sleeps like the dead since she arrived in Elysium.

Nadia scrambles over to Tom's side of the bed and opens the drawer to his endtable. His gun and Mayan pocket knife, which he fished out of the river in Los Angeles for reasons Nadia can't comprehend, are still there. Nadia notices Tom's cell phone is still charging on the end table as well.

Something is very, very wrong here.

Nadia springs out of bed and frantically goes to leave the bedroom, but then thinks better of it. She goes over to the closet, puts her robe on over her nightgown to cover herself up in case Emilio and/or Maria were up already, and now leaves the bedroom.

Nadia marches down the hall in a walking sprint and starts scanning the living room as soon as she can. No Tom. Not even a sign that he's been there. Sometimes after spats, Tom makes the couch his bed, but the afghan blanket that drapes over the back of the couch hasn't been touched. Nadia knows this since Tom usually doesn't fold his blanket when he's done, and when he does, he folds it a different way than Nadia does.

So he's not in the living room. Nadia rounds the corner and looks at the kitchen.

Nothing here, either. No note on the counter, coffee pot, fridge, or kitchen table. Nadia looks out the back patio door and there's no sign of him there, either.

Nadia turns around and looks back down the hallway, still in a panic. She thinks about checking the kids bedrooms, but decides not to wake the kids and worry them, too.

So where did he go? The last time Nadia saw him, he was standing on the other side of the patio table looking frustrated over his lot in life. Nadia knows it's not easy for him to do what he does, and she's getting a sense lately that it's not easy having his wife as his boss. Nadia knows there's been friction lately between the two of them and she doesn't like it as much as Tom does. The only difference is that she's not been as expressive about it as Tom has. The reason for that is partly because she's not as hotheaded as Tom (although she has her moments), but also because she _is _Tom's boss, and has to maintain an even keel.

Suddenly, she remembers something. Looking back through the patio door, she spots Eddie Falk and Julieta Romero's house next door. Nadia remembers that Tom also likes to seek out his brother when he's got something weighing on his mind. After all, when they split up for a short time during The Nine fiasco a couple years ago, it was Eddie's couch that Tom laid his head down at night.

But, just like she's going to do here in a little bit, Eddie and Julieta have some mouths to feed of their own this morning. So, she decides to sit tight for a bit and focus on breakfast for the time being. Nadia even gets the wild notion in her mind that Tom may just return.

If she had even caught a whisper of his conversation with her mother Irina the night before, she knows there is 0% chance of that happening.

* * *

_**Santa Barbara, CA (Earth)**_

Reports. She still hates reports after all this time.

And yet, for CIA Freelancer Sydney Bristow, they're still part of a job that she still didn't want to give up after all this time.

No, working in a bank just wasn't cutting it. Michael Vaughn appears to be handling his role as a French teacher just fine. Although he has never explicitly said it, Sydney knows that Michael doesn't want to end up like his father: on the run living a life of anonymity with someone else's wife for a decade before he died with no one caring about it. The intelligence world is full of risks and frustrations, and that sure was the case for Michael.

But for Sydney, it's the world she knows. She was not built for spreadsheets, account balances, and interest rates. She was built for action.

She also was built to be a mother, which is why she's only a freelancer. Sydney makes it a point to take short, less risky contracts. 90% of the time, she's way, way, way over qualified for what she's doing, but every once in a while, she gets to sink her teeth into something juicy.

Right now, though, she is a basic report on her investigation into a tactical team operating in the Ukraine. Based on what she's seen and heard, the Crimea region's a little unsettled of late and she thinks a powder keg between an unsettled Ukraine government and Russia could go off. But in her evaluation of the tactical team there, she believed they passed muster for the most part.

Now is the boring part of letting the CIA how and why they pass that muster. She could use a break...

...and she's going to get one in the form of a series of bird whistles. Two high, one mid, one high, one low is the series. That signifies that Tom Falk is here, most likely for details on a perp that's causing trouble in Elysium.

After Irina returned to her life, it wasn't long before Sydney was back in the CIA. She's not quite sure what caused her intelligence juices to start flowing again, but she thinks Irina had something to do with it. Once she told Irina and Nadia of her return to the CIA, they asked if she would be willing to do some homework on people that are causing trouble in Elysium. The sudden openness doesn't stop there, though. Sydney often has both been asked to give or asked for advice on how to handle a situation by Nadia, Tom, Irina, or Mary Falk. So far, it hasn't caused any issues as it pertains to the barrier that exists between Earth and Elysium. Sydney enjoys being closer to her family and brother-in-law, and they feel the same.

Sydney sits back in her office chair and has a big grin on her face. "Hello Tom! I was beginning to think you forgot about me!"

Tom doesn't sound as chipper as Sydney. But, as usual when he communicates with Sydney or Karen Falk on Earth, he sounds like he's coming through a filter. _"Yeah, sorry about that Syd. I haven't been good company lately."_

Sydney's smile closes a little bit out of concern. "Oh no. What's going on?"

"_Oh, work's been pretty cut and dried of late and me and Nadia seem to be getting under each others skins. You know, the usual marriage stuff."_

"Well, my husband isn't my boss too, so I don't think it's that simple."

"_What if he were, Syd? How do you think that would work?"_

"Uh...not very well." Sydney then laughs at the end of that. "We had some real nasty moments when he was my CIA handler when I was at SD-6. I hated seeing his face sometimes."

"_Has Nadia said anything to you lately? About us?"_

Sydney keeps her face tight. "I don't feel comfortable talking about what we've been talking about."

"_That's not good..."_

"Yes and no. Look, Nadia still loves you. She just wishes you wouldn't get so wound tight."

"_That's part of the reason I'm here. I'm kind of on a personal assignment that's going to take me away from her for a while. I think this assignment and the fact we'll be away will be a good thing for many reasons."_

"What are you doing?"

"_There's a gun ring that's starting to make some noise in the Tijuana area. I'm going to give them their eviction notices in the only way I know how."_

Sydney lets out a deep breath. She always has been fond of Tom as a person, but knows his dark side all too well. And she detected something in his voice that's...different. There's no tension in his voice at the mention of killing people. In fact...he seemed almost glad. It always struck her a little eerie how cool Tom was when he talked about death, but he never at any point seemed glad to be killing someone except for Arvin Sloane, which she not only understood, but also shared his joy with in a way.

"_So I need details on some men on my list. Some of these names look familiar to me and I just want to cross-reference them and make sure I've dealt with them or not. This could affect how I approach this mission."_

Sydney nods a little reluctantly and leans forward. "Go for it."

"_Something wrong?"_

Sydney replies "Did Nadia send you on this mission...or are you sending yourself?"

"_I can't reveal that." _The terseness in Tom's voice is unmistakable.

"I'm not sure how to take that."

"_My intentions are good, Sydney...even if they appear evil on the surface._"

Sydney hangs her head a bit. Suddenly, she feels like she's going to step in a crossfire. "I don't like the sound of this."

"_Sydney, I'm still on Nadia's side here. I swear on my nephew Tommy's life. I wish I could say more, but I can't."_

Sydney nods, this time a little more assured. Tommy is Tom's close friend Mike Walcott and Karen Falk's son, and Sydney knows Tom adores the kid. Plus, she knows when Tom is being absolutely serious about something, and she picked it up in Tom's voice. "Ok. Tell me about him."

"_Enrique Ordonez...based out of Tijuana, look for an alias called 'Crazy Eight'."_

Sydney types in the information, including the alias part. One man's profile pops up. He's got his hair back in a ponytail and a generally crazed look on his dimpled and cratered face. "Enrique Oviedo, born 1/24/62, alias "Crazy Eight", part of Gallindo Cartel, died..."

"_Ok, that's all I need."_

"You don't seem relieved."

"_This bastard was a child killing prick. He's one of those types you kill once and wish you could kill again. I probably should be happy it's him, actually. Me and him left off under...interesting circumstances."_

Sydney lets out a bit of a chuckle. The way Tom talks about his kills would be almost humorous if it weren't a bit disturbing. "Ok, who's next?"

"_Wait a second. Before we continue, I need you to tell you something, and feel free to relay this to whoever comes a' knocking after me."_

"What's that?"

"_I was never here."_

**END OF CHAPTER**


	7. Involved

**INVOLVED**

* * *

_**Tijuana, Mexico (Earth, circa 2006, from original FanFic "Project Nadia", Chapter "Moving Forward")**_

Tom looks back over at Hernando and says "_Gracias por mantener un ojo en mi papelera, mientras yo estaba fuera._ (Thanks for keeping an eye on my bin while I was away.)" Hernando says "_Después de lo que hizo por mí años atrás, fue un placer. Voy a dejar que ustedes dos van ahora, voy a hablar con usted más tarde, Tomás._ (After what you did for me years back, it was my pleasure. I'll let you two go now, I'll talk to you later, Tomas.)"

Tom nods and says "Adios, Hernando." Hernando then steps back as the gate opens in front of Tom again. Tom then drives forward into the storage bin area.

As he drives forward, Nadia asks curiously "What did you do for this man to earn his friendship?"

Tom thinks about how he's going to word this story and then says "His 7 year old daughter was gunned down in a playground. She got caught in the middle of a drive-by and was not the target, but still was murdered in the name of gang warfare. Hernando is a friend of an informant I went through down here, and while me and another agent named Freddie Torres were down here on other Anti-Cartel business, our informant told me about what happened to Hernando's baby girl. Even though we had to break protocol, we helped Hernando get revenge."

Nadia then asks "Why get involved? Shouldn't that be a matter for local police?"

As they continue to pass rows of storage bins, Tom replies "The local police didn't care. Plus, when I hear about little kids being involved in gang activity..._I_ get involved. Sadly, this wasn't my first rodeo when it came to innocent kids getting killed in the name of gang warfare."

Nadia understandingly nods, then asks "So, what did you do?"

Tom says "We did some digging into this incident and, as it turns out, all of the shooting came from one car, meaning there's only one finger to point. We traced that car to a relatively small-time gang and found the owner of the car. After slapping him around a bit, he admitted that he didn't shoot the girl, but his gangbanger friend did. So, we paid that gangbanger friend a visit, he confirmed his crime, and took him over to these storage bins, where Hernando was waiting." Tom then looks over at Nadia and says "We let Hernando get vengeance for his daughter's death. And we let him choose the punishment."

Nadia, a little surprised, says "You let Hernando kill this man?"

Tom then looks back over at Nadia. "I understood why Hernando wanted blood. If it were our child, I'd want the same thing."

* * *

_**San Felipe, Mexico (Elysium, modern day)**_

That "gangbanger" that met his end by a vengeful father was named Enrique "Loco Ocho" Ordonez. Tom lets the fact that Enrique is not only back in his life, but running a gun ring swirl in his mind a little.

It's a monkey wrench into his plans to say the least.

Tom, now sitting on a bench watching the sun rise in downtown San Felipe, has gone over Irina's list of targets and was relieved when, after cross-referencing them with Sydney earlier in the day, that most of his targets didn't have any direct contact with him that he knew of. It was Tom's hope that he could maintain some anonymity and perhaps assume an alias during the time he was to infiltrate the group.

But the moment Enrique hears about him, it's moot. There is no doubt in Tom's mind that Enrique will want to hurt Tom something fierce. Cartels and gang members in Mexico are big believers in the "eye for an eye" theory, and usually compound the original infraction with something doubly painful in return. Why? Because they can.

And it's that same outlook on life that guided Tom's rationale during his Anti-Cartel days. Playing "Strawberry Fields Forever", however, takes that theory and compounds it further. The reason that Tom was given that training, after all, was because there was a question about his "killer instinct".

The real reason was that, in his early psychological testing with the CIA, his guilty conscience stood out like a sore thumb. And in order to fight fire with fire with the cartels, he had to kill that guilty conscience dead when he went out in the field.

But back to Enrique. Tom can't use an alias here. Tom also can't do what Sydney used to and wear a disguise. For one, this is a long term assignment, so he'd have to keep up the ruse for longer than what would be practical. But also, he's just too infamous and has too distinct of a look for Enrique to ignore.

He's going to have to go into this as Halcon Diablo. But being Halcon Diablo doesn't mean going in on a rampage. He still has to play this smart.

Tom still has a trump card to play. He's immortal in Elysium. Shooting him or stabbing him in the head has the effect of merely stunning him. Take for instance what happened when Tom had a blade get plunged into the back of his head a couple years ago when he made contact with the Lobos Rabiosos. Tom was down for the count, but recovered after a few seconds. One thing Tom has learned about how The Tonic works in him now is that he can be disabled long enough for someone to make an escape, so again, he can't just be willing to walk into a crossfire and take one for the team.

Again, Tom has to play this smart.

In the meantime, Tom pulls out the iPhone that was provided to him by Irina. He notices that he has an email, so he checks it and discovers it's from _TheManID __._Tom opens the email and the message simply asks "_Status update?"_

Irina wants an update. Tom finds this perplexing.

Irina, from the sounds of it, wanted him to not have contact with her or anyone in the EIA during this. There was a reason for that, Tom believed, but here she is asking for an update. Is this another test? Is Irina trying to trick him? Has her ruse been found out?

No matter. Tom decides it's not worth his thoughts right now. He's about to take a gamble today that maybe he shouldn't make. He has to stay sharp.

Irina will have to wait. But in the meantime, Tom has a stop to make.

* * *

_**San Felipe, Mexico (Elysium)**_

Meanwhile, back in the home Tom left behind, Maria and Emilio are in good spirits as they finish their french toast breakfast, cooked by a loving, yet still troubled Nadia.

In fact, Maria appears to be particularly happy. She sets down her fork with a clang on her plate and tells her mother sitting across the kitchen table "All done!"

Nadia snaps out of a trance she was in while she looked out at the sea with a thousand yard stare. She does her best to compose herself and give Maria a smile. It doesn't come with her usual warmth. "I'm glad you liked it. Now, what do we do with our plates?"

"We put them in the sink!" And with that, Maria springs up, grabs her plate, and drops it in the sink less-than-carefully with a loud clang.

This causes Nadia to roll her eyes a bit. "Honey, be careful! You could have broken that!"

Maria turns around with a painfully innocent look on her face. "I'm sorry, Mommy. But I can't reach all the way yet!"

Nadia gives Maria a reassuring smile. "I'll get you something to stand on."

All the while, Emilio has sat in his chair, eying Nadia with puppy dog eyes with a clean plate in front of him.

Nadia gives him somewhat of an incredulous look. "Emilio..."

The soft-spoken Emilio goes ahead with what he's so timid to ask. "Can I have some more?"

"What happened the last time you had seconds?"

Emilio hangs his head and immediately looks sad. "I fell asleep in class."

"That's right. And where are we going today once your grandma picks you up?"

Emilio sulks out of his chair. As he picks up his plate, he groans "To class."

Nadia can't help but feel a little bad inside for Emilio. Maria's growing up normally at 7 years of age, but 8 year old Emilio is rapidly growing. He's not a fat kid, though he does have a bit of padding around the midriff. Instead, he's both tall and almost hulking for his age. In fact, Tom has already said on multiple occasions that Emilio is going to be built like a Mack Truck and has even offered to teach him the finer points of football in order to take advantage of his size. Emilio seems interested, but what holds him back from being a class athlete is that he's about the meekest kid Tom's ever seen.

His size and humility makes him a perfect big brother for Maria, who has her father's chip on her shoulder sometimes. Emilio is a big, yet safe presence for Maria, and it's gotten to the point where if Maria gets scared over something, her default is to hid behind Emilio, not Tom's leg. Despite being meek, Emilio appears to enjoy showing off his chivalry. Maybe there's a hero inside him.

"Hi kids!"

Nadia's eyes dart over to the front door, where Mary Falk has just entered. Then, just as quickly as she spotted Mary, she turns around just as fast to go back to studying the sea.

Tom's mother is here. Tom is missing. And you can't hide a damn thing from Mary, especially when it pertains to family. Nadia's seen that sixth sense in only one other woman: her own mother.

Maria and Emilio both give her kind of a sheepish "Hi" in unison.

This causes Mary to be astonished, though she doesn't erase her big smile. "What's the matter? You two are usually so excited to see me!"

Nadia keeps looking away, hoping that Maria or Emilio don't say their daddy is missing.

Maria instead looks at Emilio, who gives her a "come on!" Maria then turns back to Mary. "I talked to Emilio this morning. We've decided we're not going to school today."

Nadia forgets about Tom immediately. She said WHAT? She spins on her heels and looks agitated at her daughter. "Maria!"

Maria looks back innocently at Nadia. "It's true! Yesterday was hard and we want to play today!"

"Where is this coming from, Maria? You always like school!"

Mary doesn't appear to be offended at all. In fact, she's laughing at all this.

Nadia fixes her angered gaze at Mary. "What's so funny about this?"

Mary stops laughing long enough to say "Their father and uncle would conspire like this to skip class, and it would always be Tom that makes the plea to his grandpa to not go to class! Maria's a chip off the old block!"

Maria stamps her foot on the ground and says "I'm serious! We're not going!"

Mary sighs to compose herself a little. "I know yesterday was a little hard. That's why I had a lot of play time scheduled today for you..."

Mary continues to plead her case to the kids. Meanwhile, Nadia turns back around and tries to think how she's going to handle Mary. Mary initially was going to be a part of the Elysium Intelligence Agency. In fact, her early work was quite great. But, her work reminded her too much of her vagabond days with Bill Vaughn, which were spent protecting young Tom and trying to find and protect an even younger Nadia. Being partnered with Bill didn't help one bit and it also caused a bit of friction between Mary and her husband Thomas. Plus, Julieta Romero was having a tough time finding a teacher for the orphans that she oversees at the house next door. So, Mary thought she could kill a few birds with one stone by stepping down from the EIA and becoming a teacher. Tom and Nadia understood, though Irina was a little disappointed since she considered Mary almost at the same level as hers in terms of not only being a talented agent, but also they operated similarly and could relate to why they were doing what they were doing. Irina and Mary remain friends, but they're not as close as they would be if Mary were still in the EIA.

But what about Tom? Nadia just can't get Tom out of his mind, but she doesn't want to raise any red flags with Mary...

"Nadia?"

Nadia turns over to Mary, who now has taken a position next to Nadia at the patio door. "What's wrong?"

Always keeping a kind smile about her, Mary replies "I was going to ask you that. You sort of zoned out on me just now."

Nadia shakes her head. "I'm sorry, is everything alright?"

"The kids are washing up from breakfast. They've agreed to my strict demands to go to school today."

Mary finishes the sentence with a laugh, which is not returned in kind by Nadia, who goes back to being transfixed by the sea.

Mary puts a hand on Nadia's shoulder, hoping it'd help snap her out of whatever fog she's in. Mary has seen this face from Nadia all too much. "Come on, Nadia. I know you too well to know when something is troubling you. You can talk to me."

Nadia looks back over at Mary with some trepidation. Despite Irina being a motherly figure for her again, Mary still hasn't stopped being a maternal presence in her life. She locks eyes with Mary, who has a look on her face like she's not going to be backed down here. In an act of submission, Nadia hangs her head and sighs. "It's Tom. He didn't come home last night."

Mary looks somewhat concerned as her smile disappears. "This isn't the first time this has happened."

Nadia's eyes shoot up to lock with Mary's. She knows she's getting angry, so she yells in a hushed voice "But this is the first time he's been gone THIS long! He missed dinner last night, he missed breakfast this morning...and if he's off chasing this gun ring, he seems to have forgotten his gun, cell phone, and that damned knife!"

Mary turns away from Nadia and looks out at the sea herself. "What about this gun ring?"

Nadia sighs again and joins Mary in looking at the sea. "It's in Tijuana. Tom came upon it while handing a kill for us the other day. He's insisting on taking lead on this and infiltrating the group. He seems to believe it's a problem that needs to be solved as soon as humanly possible."

Mary's eyes narrow. "And you disagree with that."

Nadia looks back at Mary. "You, of all people, know of Tom's history! And you know how frustrated he's been lately..."

Now it's time for Mary's eyes to lock with Nadia's. "...and you know how Tom needs room to breathe sometimes! He doesn't like to be smothered by authority, you should know that!"

"So I just give in to his demands, let him go on this mission and he goes and turns into a lunatic?"

Mary shakes her head and turns away. "No. You let him go on the mission and, for christsakes, give him some support! He'll listen to you..."

Nadia lets out an incredulous laugh. "You haven't seen him lately. He's on edge all the time. You should have seen the argument we had last night, which is also the last time I saw him."

Mary turns back to Nadia. "What's done may be done here, but let me give you a nickel's worth of advice: if you tell someone like Tom he can't do something enough, he'll start doing it no matter what you say."

Footsteps are heard running down the hall behind him. Maria and Emilio have cleaned up. Maria exclaims "Ok, we're ready, grandma!"

Mary forgets about this conversation immediately as she beams back at the kids. "Ok, let's go!"

As Mary starts to walk away, Nadia reaches out and touches her arm. "Mary, wait!" Mary looks back curiously at Nadia. Nadia then says "When you see Eddie, ask him if he has his analysis report ready. He was to study a gun that Tom found."

Mary smiles and nods. "Of course. And Nadia? Everything will be ok. Mothers know these things."

Nadia, not sharing Mary's confidence, just nods her head. Mary reaches out her hands and Maria and Emilio grab them as they head for the doorway.

Nadia follows behind them and says "Bye kids! Have fun today!"

Emilio just waves back at her, but Maria says "Bye Mommy! If Daddy comes home, tell him I love him!"

Nadia can feel the tears already, but she fights them off and says "Ok, I will!" Maria adores her father so much.

Mary and the kids leave through the front door. The moment the door shuts, Nadia turns to her right and starts wiping her wet eyes. Of all the things that bother her about Tom's absence, the fact that he's leaving his kids behind hurts her the most...

What, what was that?

Nadia stops wiping her eyes because she swore that she just saw a shadow in her bedroom. She freezes and everything goes dead silent in the house. The TV is off and all Nadia can hear now is a cuckoo clock near the front door tick-tocking away.

_SCRAAAAPE_

Nadia recognizes immediately that came from the bedroom, and it sounded like a drawer opening. In fact, it sounds like a small drawer, so that rules out the dresser. Perhaps its one of the bedside tables...but it can only be one because her table doesn't have a drawer.

It was Tom's drawer.

Making the connection, she starts sprinting down the hallway and yells "TOM!"

The sound of the drawer being slammed is heard as Nadia makes it halfway down the hallway. Of course, at this point, Nadia realizes her error and she should have just teleported into the room, but old habits die hard.

Regardless, Nadia makes it to the bedroom and sees no one is there. Nadia runs over to the other side of the bed and sees nothing. She gets on the ground and looks under the bed and sees nothing that wasn't already there. She checks the master bathroom and, you guessed it, nothing.

Was she just hearing things? She shakes that off immediately. Nadia knows those sounds were real.

She closes her eyes and lets out a LOUD guttural scream. It goes for a good 5 seconds as all her frustrations and rage pertaining to Tom get forced out of her. Now, she's angry with him. He's walked out on his family and now almost taunts her by coming back while she was still home. Why does Tom have to be like this? Why does Tom have to shake up her world like this?

Nadia stops and tries to breathe normally again. Tom was here. She knows it. He was right here and now he's gone again under the same mysterious circumstances he vanished before. That's what's certain.

Nadia opens her eyes and sees Tom's drawer is slightly ajar, like it would be if he were making a hasty exit.

Nadia walks over and slowly opens the drawer.

His gun, ammo, magazine clips, and Mayan pocket knife are gone.

And as Nadia's heart sinks to her stomach, she sees Tom's cell phone acting as a paper weight for a note on top of the table, with two simple words written on it:

_S__TAY AWAY_

**END OF CHAPTER**


End file.
